changed nothing, then the United States has failed to prove that there was any interference with control and management in any real sense. The Chamber has no need to go into the question of the extent to which it could or should question the validity of a finding of Italian law, the law governing the matter, by the appropriate Italian courts. It is sufficient to note that the conclusion above, that the feasibility of an orderly liquidation plan is not sufficiently established, is reinforced by reference to the decision of the courts of Palermo on the claim by the trustee in bankruptcy for damages for the injury caused by the requisition. Whether regarded as findings of Italian law or as findings of fact, the decisions of the courts of Palermo simply constitute additional evidence of the situation which the Chamber has to assess. 100. It is important, in the consideration of so much detail, not to get the matter out of perspective: given an under-capitalized, consistently loss-making company, crippled by the need to service large loans, which company its stockholders had themselves decided not to finance further but to close and sel1 off because, as they were anxious to make clear to everybody concerned, the money was running out fast, it cannot be a matter of surprise if, several days after the date at which the management itself had predicted that the money would run out, the company should be considered to have been actually or virtually in a state of insolvency for the purposes of Italian bankruptcy law. 101. If, therefore, the management of ELSI, at the material time, had no practical possibility of carrying out successfully a scheme of orderly liquidation under its own management, and may indeed already have forfeited any right to do so under Italian law, it cannot be said that it was the requisition that deprived it of this faculty of control and management. Furthemore, one feature of ELSI's position stands out: the uncertain and speculative character of the causal connection, on which the Applicant's case relies, between the requisition and the results attributed to it by the Applicant. There were several causes acting together that led to the disaster to ELSI. No doubt the effects of the requisition might have been one of the factors involved. But the underlying cause was ELSI's headlong course towards insolvency; which state of affairs it seems to have attained even prior to the requisition. There was the warning loudly proclaimed about its precarious position; there was the socially damaging decision to terminate the business, close the plant, and dismiss the workforce; there was the position of the banks as major creditors. In short, the possibility of that solution of orderly liquidation, which Raytheon and Machlett claim to have been deprived of as a result of the requisition, is purely a matter of speculation. The Chamber is therefore unable to see here anything which can be said to amount to a violation by Italy of Article III, paragraph 2, of the FCN Treaty.

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